A Change in Fate
by KaraSkinner
Summary: After leaving Jackie in Chicago, Hyde gets into a car crash and meets an angel that shows him just how bleak life would be if he doesn't change his fate now.


**Disclaimer: I don't own That 70's Show. If I did, season 8 would have been way better.**

 **A/N: Okay, so this is a short one-shot that's basically me ranting about season 8 That 70's Show. Fun fact: Esther was mentioned in the first season in Eric's Fatso Burger job, but she's never shown. So that's who the angel is. So, enjoy! Also, Jackie and Hyde forever!**

Hyde drove faster in the rain, breathing hard and blasting Zeppelin music really loudly. He didn't know what he was doing or where he was going to go. All he knew was he had to get out of Chicago and also away from anybody who would grill him on him Jackie. God, it hurt too much to think about it All he could think about was Kelso wrapped in a towel in his girlfriend's- _ex_ \- girlfriend's bedroom. Anger and anguish built up inside him, suffocating him. He had panicked and ran, not stopping to even hear Jackie out when she tried to grab his arm. All he could think about was her betrayal and the damn engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket. He had spent an hour in a damn ring shop with Mrs. Foreman to find the best one for Jackie. And now he would probably toss it off the water tower like Donna had when Eric dumped her.

The rain got thicker and thicker and suddenly the El Camino was hydroplaning. Hyde struggled to keep ahold of the car, but it skidded and lost control, going directly into a ditch. Everything went black.

Hyde groaned as he slowly shook himself awake. He was upside down, Zeppelin still playing from the 8-track player. "Oh shit," he muttered. He loved this car. Leo gave him this car. And now it might be totaled for good. His stupidity might have reached Kelso levels. He turned off the music and tensed when he heard someone outside, whistling "Stairway to Heaven". "Hello?" he called. "Little help here?" He undid his seatbelt and fell to the roof with a groan before climbing out the broken window. Oh yeah. He had totally ruined his car.

"Took you long enough to wake up," a voice said.

He looked to see a woman dressed in all black leaning against the rubble. She wore a pleated black leather skirt with a matching leather jacket and black knee-high boots. Her hair was pulled back into a side braid. She was staring up at the sky, not seeming to care that she was leaning against a car so freshly crashed it was still running, or about the torrential downpour on them. He squinted. She looked vaguely familiar His eyes widened. "Esther?" he said, surprised. "I must be hallucinating." Esther had been his first girlfriend, when he was fourteen. She had been a few years older than him at the time. They had only dated a few months before she left him for his uncle, but he'd always remember that time. After all, Esther was the one he had lost his virginity to.

"Kind of," Esther said. "You're not hallucinating and I'm not exactly Esther. I'm an angel. I just borrowed her image from your memories so your brain wouldn't melt by catching a glimpse of my true form."

Hyde rolled his eyes. What kind of sick joke was this? "Angel? No way. Angels aren't real. I'm an atheist, man. Go bother somebody who cares."

"Oh, you should care," Esther said, getting off the car. She whirled around to face him, glaring at him. "Because you're about to seriously fuck up your life. If I don't stop you right now, Kelso is going to look like a genius compared to you."

Hyde scoffed. "Nobody can fuck up that badly. And don't mention Kelso's name to me right now!" Every time he heard it he felt like going insane with rage, and he wanted to keep that in check, especially around girls. He didn't want to hurt or scare girls, even if they were hallucinations of a dying man.

"You will," she said bluntly. "First of all, the future rocks. You have a lot to look forward to. Oh yeah. Snowden, Wikileaks, terrorist attacks, the legalization of marijuana- it's like your conspiracy theorist burnout paradise. Not to mention this thing called the internet. But that's too difficult to explain right now."

His head hurt and he wished he would just die already if it meant Esther went away. "You're just talking gibberish, man. Bye-bye now."

"No, not bye-bye, now. Hyde, you're future is in trouble."

He rolled his eyes. "What are you going to do, show me my hideous future about what will happen if I don't change the error of my ways?"

Esther grinned. "Great suggestion, Hyde! Let's go for it."

Oh no.

Esther snapped her fingers and the scene of the crash disappeared. Hyde felt familiar metal surface beneath him and looked around. They were at the water tower. The gang, minus him and Eric, was coming up the steps. "Relax, they can't see you," she said. She looked at her nails casually. "You remember Charlie, right?"

"Of course," he smiled. Charlie had recently started hanging out with the group. He was pretty cool for a total square. It wouldn't take too long for the gang to corrupt him into seeing the error of his strait-laced ways.

"Yeah, Charlie was cool," Esther said. "Too bad you're in Vegas this night instead of being with your friends."

"I go to Vegas?" He frowned. He hadn't thought about that, but it seemed like a good option. Sin City was exactly what he needed to take his mind off of Jackie.

"Hey!" She slapped the back of his head. "Focus! Watch it play out."

He looked back at his friends. Charlie was holding a six pack of beer and making a speech about how great it was to feel like he finally belonged somewhere. He leaned against the railing and it broke off, sending him falling off the water tower. Hyde laughed despite himself and nodded. "Now he's part of the gang," he said. "This is it? So what, he breaks an arm falling off the water tower. Kelso does that every year."

Esther sighed sadly and snapped her fingers again. They were in the Foreman's kitchen. Mrs. Foreman was speaking into a recording device. "-they renamed the water tower the Charlie Richardson Memorial Tower..." she was saying.

Hyde's grin disappeared. He felt like he was going to be sick. "He died?" he whispered. "Nobody dies falling off the water tower."

"And nobody would if you were there," Esther said. "If you didn't go off to Vegas like a dillhole, then you would have been able to catch Charlie before he fell."

"Why would I do that?" Hyde said. "Watching people fall off is funny. I let Kelso fall all the time. I wouldn't know Charlie was going to die."

She shot him a _duh_ look. "He had the beer, moron"

"Oh. Fair point." He nodded. "Okay, so if I time it right, I can be back from Vegas in time to save Charlie. So that just means more intense partying to get Jackie through my system. Good to know."

She shook her head sadly. "There's more." She snapped her fingers again and they were in the Foreman's living room on a different day, but still playing with the damn recorder. Kitty, Fez, and Donna were sitting on the couch, all looking pretty bored while Fez tapped two containers together up to the microphone. He shook his head watching them. They really needed hobbies.

Just then Kelso walked in, looking fearful. Hyde balled up his fists when he saw him, rage flowing through him. Too bad he couldn't actually hit him. Or could he?

"You can't hit him, now focus!" Esther snapped at him.

"I don't remember you being this bossy when we dated," he said. "I just remember you stoned and then making out with my uncle." But he watched anyway. Kelso was terrified, as well he should be. Hyde frowned when Kitty said none of them knew where he had been for weeks. He hadn't even bothered to call Mrs. Foreman to let her know that he was safe? And right after Eric moved away, too.

Just then, Hyde- the Hyde in this time- walked through the doors. Kelso looked at him like he was going to shit his pants and "Hyde" glared at him, and then punched him very hard on the face. Kelso fell to the ground. The real Hyde grinned. He was so going to kick Kelso's ass and that was going to be fun to watch.

"Come on, get up!" "Hyde" shouted at him.

"What, so you can hit me again? No thanks!"

"Actually, just about everything I had to say was in that one punch. You're good, man."

The real Hyde frowned, studying his counterpart for his usual zen facade to see if he was just playing it cool in front of Mrs. Foreman or something. But he seemed actually sincere. On top of that, there wasn't a trace of zen on his face. He was calm, but also completely emotionless. His eyes were indifferent as he looked at everyone, as if he was just a ghost of himself or something. What the hell happened to him?

Jackie came into the room and the real Hyde froze as he watched her. Longing filled him at the sight of her. Even after what she had done to him, he still wanted her back. She was his entire world, man. Jackie stared at "Hyde" with wide eyes for a second. They ended up sitting on the couch, talking.

"She quit her dream job in Chicago," Esther told him. "She loved her work and had financial security and everything. She was on the road to being famous. But she wanted you more than any of that. So she came back to Point Place to work things out with you. On your terms."

Hyde swallowed as a lump rose up in his throat. So she still actually wanted him. Not Kelso. Him. _God, she was beautiful_. Then he tuned into what "he" was saying.

"I'm not ready to be married," "Hyde" told her. Jackie nodded.

There was a knock at the door and an attractive blonde came into the room, wearing a belly shirt that showed off a nice, tempting midriff. She had a very empty look in her eyes. "Sam?" "Hyde" said. "What are you doing here?"

Real Hyde frowned. Had he cheated on Jackie _again_? Vegas was definitely a bad idea. The last thing he wanted to be was a serial cheater like _Kelso._

"Hyde" was explaining that she was an exotic stripper he had hung out with in Vegas. Samantha looked at him with an empty expression. "We got married," she said.

Everyone looked at her, stunned, even "Hyde". Real Hyde scowled. Who was this chick, claiming they had married after only a few weeks? He wasn't sure about marrying Jackie until recently and they had dated seriously for three years. Hell, Jackie was the only girl he had ever loved, and he was still commitment shy. This Samantha was clearly a lying bitch. Then he saw her ring finger. She was wearing the ring he bought for Jackie.

"Fuck," he muttered, pacing back and forth. He looked at Esther. "No," he said. "No way, man. This is one of your stupid angel tricks. I wouldn't ever be this stupid. Or cruel. I'm a jerk, but only when it's funny. Not to be hateful."

"You haven't seen anything, yet," Esther said. "You think that's bad? Wait until you see how badly this messed up Jackie."

He swallowed. He imagined it had. A lot. His chest tightened, but he didn't stop Esther from snapping her fingers.

Hyde watched Jackie, Donna, and Fez hanging out in a bar, Jackie talking about how she was going to break some hearts to get over him. She looked fucking hot in her pink dress with her hair and makeup done perfectly, but he could see she was a wreck on the inside. His chest tightened at the sight of her as she went and got herself rejected by a guy wanting to hook up with Donna. This made her even more upset and she drank more and more as the night went on, more than was healthy. He scowled at both Donna and Fez who had left her to flirt with others. She was going to hurt herself! Or someone else was going to hurt her.

Jackie ended up making a drunken, angry speech about how she was the catch of Point Place. As she talked, one sleeve fell down, completely exposing one of her boobs for everyone to see. Hyde swallowed and turned away, unable to watch as she ran crying into the bathroom. Vanity and arrogance had always been Jackie's defense mechanism when she was upset or scared, just like Hyde hid behind zen and acting like a jerk. She must have been so hurt and scared moving back unemployed to find him uninterested.

He turned to Esther. "I'm guessing I don't come to my senses and try to play hero with her."

She shook her head. "The next day she comes into the basement and says she's done with you and men in general. You and Kelso high five each other at the idea of her dating other women."

Hyde shielded his face from Esther for a second, trying desperately to get his emotions in check. Once he was sure his zen was relatively in place, he turned back to her. "Okay," he said, his voice cracking. "Let's continue this fortune-telling story from hell, then."

Esther showed him more scenes of him and Jackie fighting, and how Jackie had to struggle with seeing Samantha all the time after Donna befriended her. She showed them being lost in the woods. "Hyde" called her a brown-haired pygmy bitch and laughed when she fell in the creek, even though it was night-time and she had to have been freezing. He wanted to kick his own ass a thousand times over.

He sighed and turned to Esther, who was studying him. "So I hurt her," he said. "That's not new. I'm an asshole! It's probably best that we broke up so she can find somebody who actually deserves her."

Esther nodded. "Well, she did find somebody else. She found Fez."

His lip curled at the idea of her and Fez going out. Fez was mostly harmless, but creepy and perverted, and the idea of Jackie actually letting him touch her was enough to make him sick. "If she's happy with him, then what should I care?" He said hoarsely. "Look, if I go back to her now, then who's to say I won't just hurt her in the future? We could get married and still end up yelling at each other in woods, me laughing as she falls into a creek."

She scoffed. "That's bullshit. The only reason why you acted out is because you let your hurt fester and become anger and then indifference. And in case you haven't noticed, that poisoned your relationships with everyone, not just with Jackie. You're no longer using zen to hide your emotions, and you're no longer just pretending to be an asshole. You become an asshole." Esther glared at him. "I'm going to show you more. And if I can't convince you, then I'll let you go down your tragic and stupid ending. But when I'm showing you these next few scenes, remember everything you can about Bud and Edna. Remember that self-destructive and abusive behavior that hurt you for years." She snapped her fingers.

They were in Kitty and Red's room at night. The two of them were tossing and turning, kept awake by loud yelling coming from down the hall. His blood ran cold when he realized it was his voice yelling. So that must mean it was his wife with him. He remembered hearing his parents fight all the time when he was younger, and how it had horrified and terrified him. It sounded exactly like that. He looked at Kitty and Red, the people who had taken him in and gave him a home when he had no other place to go. Now he was keeping them up at night the same way his parents had kept him up at night.

Esther snapped her fingers over and over, showing "Hyde" getting completely wasted, being reckless. He even overdid it in the Circle and freaked out. Instead of being in control and calm like he usually was, "Hyde" was out of control. Even worse, he acted a lot like Bud. Hyde could practically hear Edna's voice in the back of his mind. "You're just like your father," she would always say. He hated it when she said that. Becoming like Bud was one of his worse fears. And it looked like without Jackie's love and support, that's exactly how it would be.

"Fuck," he whispered. Esther had taken them to the water tower, but no one was around this time. Just them. He sat on the ground, staring out at Point Place.

"You don't have to go down that route, Steven," she said softly. "Edna had been wrong when she said you were like your father. You're kind, protective, and incredibly loyal to your friends and family. When you met Fez, you had saved him from football players and protected him ever since. You took the fall for Eric when he put a bowling ball in the television, and you went to jail for Jackie so her future wouldn't be ruined by getting arrested for possession. You got a job to help Red and Kitty pay the bills. Hell, you even gave Bud another chance, and then WB and Angie. Do you remember what you said to Edna when she told you that she was leaving you?"

"Whatever makes you happy," he whispered. How could he forget? It was one of the saddest and scariest moments of his life. He still felt a lot of anger and resentment toward her for abusing him and then abandoning him. But a small part of him had still been glad his mom had left her dead end job and miserable life to find happiness. Even if it meant she couldn't take him too. Hyde sighed and shut his eyes, trying to block the tears that burned the back of his lids.

Esther sat down next to him. "You're not a lazy, selfish alcoholic. Right now, that's not in your nature. You put on a pretty good show to hide all of the hurt that's happened to you, but deep down, you're just a hurt boy who wants to protect everyone he cares about from getting hurt as well. But something changes in you in Las Vegas. You stop pretending and start rotting from the inside out. You become like Bud."

Hyde slammed his fist against the railing. "I'm not going to be like Bud!"

"Then don't go to Las Vegas. Do the smart thing and go back to Jackie and talk it out before it's too late."

Hyde sighed and then nodded. "Fine. Fine! Is there a magic word for this or something?"

Esther smiled and snapped her fingers. Hyde was back in his car, driving down the road too fast. The rain was pouring down and his Zeppelin 8 track was blasting out "Stairway to Heaven". He glanced down at the seat next to him, where a lit joint on an ashtray was smoking. Had he hot-boxed his car and hallucinated all of it?

Hyde slowed down before he could hydroplane for real. He rolled down the windows and tossed the joint out on the side of the road. Vegas. It was so tempting. A perfect place to hide from his problems until he could face everyone in Point Place. But would it really cost him his future?

He thought back to Jackie when he had last seen her, pleading for him to stay so she could explain. Could he forgive her after that? Hyde sighed and then turned the car around. He would have to. Even if he didn't turn out like Bud, he didn't think he could live without her.

Jackie was at her hotel room drinking wine straight from the bottle when there was a knock on the door. She rolled her eyes. "Go away, Michael!" she shouted. "I'm not in the mood!"

"Jackie, it's me," a soft voice said on the other side.

Jackie froze for a second and then put down the wine, running to the door. She opened it up to find Hyde on the other side of it. His expression was unreadable. "Oh my god," she said. "You came back."

"Yeah. Can I come in?"

She moved aside to let him in the room. She sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed and he perched himself on a nearby chair, looking incredibly uncomfortable. "Steven, I'm so sorry. Nothing actually happened between Michael and I. I know we were going to, but it didn't mean anything, and I thought you weren't interested anymore, and-"

"Jackie." He took off his sunglasses, letting her see that he wasn't angry at her. He wasn't hiding his emotions either, instead letting her see the wariness, longing, and love he had for her. "Look, I was really mad when I left here. I wasn't thinking straight. But I am now. Or at least I'm better. I might be a little stoned. I'm honestly not sure." He swallowed and looked her in the eyes. "The point is, I'm not mad at you. Because I messed up, too. I waited too long to give you an answer. The second time, I mean. You cut the deadline short the first time."

She nodded, biting her lip. That was fair.

"I don't know much about my future. Or how everything is going to work out. But I do know I want to spend it with you. And I promise you, I'm not going to leave you until you decide to kick me out." He swallowed and looked down at the ground, nervous before standing up. "So, Jackie," he slowly went down on one knee. Jackie covered her face with her hands.

"Oh my god, Steven," she whispered.

He smiled at her and pulled a ring box out of his jacket pocket. He opened it up, showing her a diamond ring. She realized the ring was what she had always described to him when talking about marriage. He had been listening, after all! "Will you marry me?" he said.

"Oh my god, yes!" She leaped off the bed and hugged him. He hugged her back, burying his face in her neck. "Thank you, Steven! Thank you so much!"

"I love you," he said. "And I won't stop. I promise." He kissed the top of her head.

"I love you too, Steven," she said. She cupped his face with her hands and gently kissed him. One of his hands went up to tangle itself in her hair and he picked her up and put her on the bed, crawling on top of her and kissing her tenderly.

A thought crossed her mind and she frowned. "Steven, what's going to happen now? I already signed a three month contract. I can't get out of it. And you have the record store to manage and how exactly is this going to work? Am I going to live at the Foreman's house, because no offense, but-"

He silenced her with another kiss and moved off her, pulling her up to cuddle into his side. "Details, baby, details," he said. "Oh, uh, I do need to go back to Point Place in like three days, though, or Charlie might die falling off the water tower."

Jackie frowned and looked up at him. "Wait, what?"

Hyde cleared his throat. "Long story."


End file.
